TEL: 415.441.8680
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“Paired readymades, an 18th century engraving and a 21st century shovel:
Shovel from Goodman’s Hardware: Marcel Duchamp made a radical break with traditional art by inventing the readymade, a pre-existing, industrially produced object such as a bicycle wheel, which the artist placed on a pedestal with little or no modification. These items became art because he called them art and placed them in an art muse um. Many argue that this gesture was the most important event in the art of the twentieth century. The shovel here, purchased at a local hardware store, has been modified only slightly to contain the explanatory notes for the “a, b & c “ reference letters in the engraving.
Engraving for Anatomie from the Diderot Encyclopedia: In 1747 Denis Diderot, the energetic French philosopher and man of letters was appointed general editor of what was to become the major publishing project of the 18th century – The Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire des sciences, des arts et des métiers. It attempted to condense all human knowledge into eight volumes of text and two volumes of illustrations. Ultimately the work included seventeen volumes of text and eleven volumes of engravings. The 3000 illustrations covered every aspect of contemporary knowledge ranging from anatomy to trigonometry. The illustrations were made as extremely sophisticated engravings which were exquisite and beautiful to look at but were not done as “art. ”An illustration for the subject of anatomie is imbedded in a canvas and amended to create new, enlarged reference letters: a, b and c.” Charles Hobson
Charles Hobson
Anatomie: Diderot & Duchamp
2009, mixed media (acrylic paint on canvas, collage
and digital transfer, with shovel, 63” x 20” total, canvas:
24” x 20”, $1,500
January 9 - February 7, 2010
THE SEDUCTION OF DUCHAMP
BAY AREA ARTISTS’ RESPONSE
CURATED BY:
Hanna Regev
& Steven Lopez
Charles Hobson is an artist who makes artist’s books and works on paper with pastel, monotypes and other printmaking variations and often follows literary or historical themes.
He is a member of the faculty at the San Francisco Art Institute and his works are held by the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum and the National Gallery, among others. His archive has recently been acquired by Stanford University.
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